CASSOPOLIS — After just over two weeks of practice and tryouts, a coach never really knows how his team is going to play in its season opener.

That is even more true for a first-year head coach.

For Dowagiac’s Jason Turner, who replaces Brent Nate after three years at the helm of the Chieftain program, he learned that his team has a lot of work to do when it comes to shooting the basketball.

Dowagiac was unable to convert on many easy shots, mostly inside the paint area, in a 43-30 non-conference loss to the host Rangers Tuesday night.

Turner also learned that just because you go over something in practice does not mean it will translate onto the court in game situations. Things like forcing a player to go left.

That player was Cassopolis senior point guard Angel Gary, who scored a game-high 18 points, and got the ball inside to the Rangers’ post players, like Jadin Wolfe, who finished with 10 points.

“Sometimes, she would dribble all the way down the court on us,” Turner said. “We would go over that. We had to force her to go left. We would do that for a dribble, and then she would go back to that right hand. That is something we can work on in practice.”

One of the other things that Dowagiac was going to be working on Wednesday, in practice in preparation for its Wolverine Conference opener Thursday night against visiting Paw Paw, is shooting.

Dowagiac must find a way to put the ball into the basket. It was the only part of the game that the Chieftains were unable to do on a consistent level.

“There are a lot of things we can do in practice to fix that,” Turner said. “Layups were a big problem for us tonight. We got a lot of steals and turnovers, but we just did not convert the layups. We are going to have to go ‘game-speed’ more often in practice. I talked to the girls about going ‘game-speed’ on these layups if they want to convert them in games.”

Hayden First led the Chieftains with 10 points. Allie Conner added seven points.

Cassopolis coach Janice Gatson wants her team to be more aggressive this season.

Gatson wants the Rangers to use their speed and quickness too, but being aggressive at both ends of the floor and attacking the basket is among the top priorities for the 2019-20 season.

Cassopolis was able to use all three of those assets in defeating visiting Dowagiac 43-30 in the non-conference season opener for both schools Tuesday night.

“There are still a lot of things that we need to work on,” Gatson said. “We had some spurts where we played well, and we had some spurts where we didn’t. We are going to play up and get after it all over the court.”

Cassopolis and Dowagiac played an even first quarter with the host Rangers taking a 10-9 lead late.

With its continued aggressive play, and continually driving to the basket, the Rangers were able to slowly open up a lead on the Chieftains.

Cassopolis went to the locker room at halftime leading 24-19, which it extended to 34-27 after three quarters. It was all Rangers in the final eight minutes of play.

Cassopolis will host Hartford in its Southwest 10 Conference opener.